The Misanthrope review – Sandra Oh’s London stage debut could have been, should have been, so much better

Sandra, Oh no: the Canadian star deserves more than this uneven adaptation of ‘The Misanthrope’ - (Marc Brenner)

“I hate everyone,” says Sandra Oh’s novelist du jour and the misanthrope of this play’s title. “I used to think it was just men.” It’s one of many such proclamations in Martin Crimp’s gender-flipping but ultimately punch-pulling take on Molière’s 17th-century comedy.

Here, our protagonist is not the well-to-do aristocrat Alceste, but the well-to-do author Alice whose career – and a prestigious literary prize – is at risk over her inability to bite her tongue. Not that she cares; Alice cannot stand the hypocrisy of modern society and the flimsy pleasantries it demands. She refuses to “swivel”, as her playwright pal John (a wonderful Paul Chahidi) puts it. He is promptly admonished by Alice for having that night embraced a stranger as a friend so as not to hurt their feelings. The only crack in her armour? Alice’s movie star boyfriend Stefan (Tom Mison), who is fickle and fawning and image-obsessed. “Doesn’t he represent everything you hate?” John asks at one point. Their love affair, though, is not convincingly drawn. Sure, opposites attract, but this guy? Really?